How to improve Geological CO2 Storage Security?

Seyed completed his MSc and PhD in Petroleum Engineering from Institute of Petroleum Engineering at Heriot-Watt University. He is leading Reservoir, Energy and Environment Theme in the Flow Measurement and Fluid Mechanics Research Centre at Coventry University. Currently, in his research group there are 15 researchers, including three academic staff and 12 students. His research interests lie in the area of multiphase fluid flow through porous media. He studies the application of fluid flow in oil and gas reservoirs as well as Geological CO2 Storage (GCS).

There have been many discussions worldwide on how to tackle climate change. The main output from the latest one (Paris agreement in December 2015) was to set a target of limiting global warming to less than 2°C compared to pre-industrial levels. Many studies have shown that Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) can be a viable option to mitigate the anthropogenic CO2 emission to the atmosphere thereby reducing the temperature rise. Saline aquifers and depleted oil and gas reservoirs for CO2 storage are seen as the most viable options due to their capacity and accessibility. However, a wide range of physical processes will be involved, most not being wholly understood, e.g. CO2 migration under buoyancy is of great interest to researchers in this field to enhance the knowledge of this phenomena. Different monitoring techniques (e.g. seismic, tracer, sampling etc.) have been deployed in different CO2 storage projects to detect the plume migration in the storage formation and. In this talk, focus will be on the numerical modelling of plume migration with regard to secure CO2 storage in geological storage formations.